Como mwolverton começou a jornada do(a) design de página na web

Resumo

Cathedral Partners is a web 2.0 website for connecting buyers and sellers of privately held companies. We match a company that needs capital for with a buyer based on a matching technology, then we give them the tools needed to manage the process. We are redeveloping our webportal and website and building them on a new platform. Over the next couple of months we will be gearing up for a VERY PUBLIC launch....so the winner will definitely have something to brag about here. Please Note - we have had several 99Designs contests and are big fans of the service. In fact, on Saturday, 10/4, we awarded a prize on 99 Designs for redesigning our website.

Now, we are looking for a 925 pixel width by 245 pixel tall flash animation for our new homepage. The flash animation should include sound. I will be very engaged in this competition and will provide frequent feedback. I will also make myself available to contestants via IM, if I feel that they are going in the right direction and some additional guidance will put them over the top. Ultimately, the designer that can tell the following story in the most professional, visually communicative and stimulating way will win.

Nome da empresa

Cathedral Partners

O que te inspira e como você imagina o design para seu negócio?

Please download a flash mockup in powerpoint here: http://www.michaelwolverton.com/flash3.ppt if you "preview" the powerpoint you will see the mockup in action it shows the full story and sequence. What we are looking for a designer who can create great visual imagery and sound to go along with it.

Our Users: Our clientele are some of the largest banks in the world. So, our users are executives who will be turned off by a "consumerish" flash presentation. We are not using flash here to entertain our users, we are using it because our users are all about digesting meaningful content and we believe flash is the best tool to quickly tell a compelling story.

The Story: The story, detailed in the mockup, is very simple. It needs to convey the following:

A buyer has money that he wants to invest.

A seller is in need of an investment.

Each of them know a lot of people, but they don't know all the people (or the right people)
They connect on Cathedral partners and now they know each other. The implication is that the seller received the 40 million$ from the buyer.

The Visuals:

1. In my mockup, the seller (always green), is on the right and the buyer (always blue) is on the left. The mockup starts with Jim. In your submission, please switch the order and start with Mark. In other words, "Meet Mark" should be the first thing that happens. You will also note that Buyers are on the left and Sellers are on the right....please keep that in mind throughout the presentation. For example...it would be a bit strange if you ended the presentation and buyer visuals ended on the seller side, and vice-versa.

2. We need a way to represent Jim and Mark. In the mockup I used very simple icons - the blue icon with the diamond head is a buyer and the green icon with a circle head is the seller. I am certainly not attached to using these figures. I used them, however, because simple is better. Visually stimulating or interesting is good, it just can't be cartoonish (like http://www.salesgenius.com) The user shouldn't be so interested in the icon that they aren't paying attention to the story.

3. Our solution is global, so we want the buyer and seller in this story to be located on a map or a globe. You can be creative here. What we need to convey is that our solution has a global reach and that it is our goal to connect all buyers and sellers globally. In the mockup I used a "static" map. This is an "OK" solution. I would prefer, however, to see something that is more dynamic - as long as it doesn't disrupt the story. For example, imagine a spinning globe that stops and zooms in so that we can meet Jim, who is in California. Then the globe spins and zooms in on India, and we meet Mark. There are many possibilities here....don't get attached to just this one.

4. In my mockup, you will see green circles and blue diamonds. These are supposed to represent additional buyers and sellers. Do not get attached to these symobls for representing the additional buyers and sellers....however you do represent them, however, should have consistant design elements with how you represent Jim and Mark. At this line in the story, "Jim and Mark know a lot of people" the flash presentation should visually represent the fact that they know a lot of buyers and sellers. On a static background, as I have in the mockup, I could have accomplished this by having the blue diamonds and green circles "pop" up exponentially faster (like popcorn). If you went with a globe....you could have additional sellers and buyers pop up as the globe spins. Again, these are just ideas.

5. When the mockup says, "Now they do." you should visually represent Jim and Mark getting connected. I accomplished this by moving their icons closer together, under the text. There are many ways to do this....surprise me.

6. When "Connected" appears on the screen, you should visually represent that Jim and Mark, because they are on Cathedral Partners, are now connected to a vast network. In the mockup, I could have accomplished this by drawing arrows (like diagrams of airplane flights) from Jim and Mark to the buyers and sellers that popped up when we earler said, "Jim and Mark know a lot of people". I would like to see some creativity here! Please make sure, visually, that you only connect buyers and sellers. In other words, buyers should not be connected to buyers and sellers should not be connected to sellers.

7. You will note that the "C" in Controlled, Connected and Confidential uses the background colors from our logo. Please stick with that, we like it. Additionally, I have imagery in my head where the blue and green icons in my mockup "morph" into a bigger letter "C," like in our logo. You don't need to use this, its just an idea that I think could be appealing and good for branding in the event you can pull it off.

8. When the presentation ends, I would like to visually direct the user somehow to choose either one of the tabs at the top or one of the get started buttons below. This could be done with arrows, graphics....whatever works. Just make sure that it follows the flow of the rest of the flash element.

The designer that can tell this story in the most professional, visually communicative and stimulating way will win.

Sim

(see above for details)

Buyers are blue and sellers are green
Professional, no consumer oriented presentations please
less than 10 seconds (10 is the absolute most)

the ability to replay
925 pixel width by 245 pixel height
a workaround to demoing the flash....we are not going to be able to pick a winner if all we can see are the screenshots.
sound
polish - your design work should have excellent flow
collaboration - the designer who wins will likely do so because the have great ideas, implement them well AND they have should a willingness to collaborate with me to make it great.